Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

Muzaffarpur, Bihar: Runa Devi, 35, Class 8-pass of Kafen Chaudhari village of Bochaha block of Muzaffarpur, Bihar, is a Pashu Sakhi, trained to deal with simple medical ailments as well as advise goat owners on the rearing of quality ruminants to improve their market value. However, she is no ordinary “bakri ki dactar (veterinarian)” from the back of beyond.

By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Almost five years after its conservation, Neela Gumbad, the blue-tiled tomb in the 16th century mausoleum complex of Mughal emperor Humayun, is likely to be unveiled officially on Saturday.

According to officials of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Union Culture Minister Prahlad Singh Patel will inaugurate the ancient domed building on August 31 with two other projects — a new museum displaying retrieved and confiscated antiquities at Purana Quila and new-fangled illumination at Qutub Minar complex.

By Bill Gates
Can goats empower women?
In one of the poorest areas of India, they already are.
This is thanks to a new team of health workers who are training rural women how to gain financial independence by raising healthier goats.

The health workers are goat nurses known as “pashu sakhis,” which means “friends of the animals” in Hindi. Pashu sakhis are all poor women themselves who are given basic training in how to vaccinate, deworm, and provide other preventive care to goats in their community.

So, how does this help empower women?

Anganwadi teachers to collect info on food habits of families

The Department for Women, Children, Disabled and Senior Citizens (DWCD) will soon have a project monitoring unit (PMU) to monitor the data of children, pregnant and lactating mothers served by the Anganwadi centres across the State.
The DWCD has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Aga Khan Foundation which has agreed to support the PMU. Currently, the department’s internal IT Cell is digitising the data uploaded by Anganwadi supervisors.

Teachers roped in

The effort of Aga Khan Trust for Culture and Telangana Tourism is to restore the Tombs to how they were nearly 500 years ago," Telangana Tourism secretary Venkatesham said

Hyderabad: The first phase of the restoration of the Quli Qutb Shahi Tombs taken up by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) would be completed by January next year, said Telangana Tourism secretary B Venkatesham here on Friday.

Connecting park with Qutb Shahi tombs proposed

Days after its inauguration, the Deccan Park is a roaring hit among the locals with hundreds of people thronging the 32-acre park. On Sunday, about 6,000 people visited the park which is a non-ticketed facility as of now.

A mammoth undertaking to restore and develop Delhi’s Nizamuddin will end this time next year. How has it transformed one of the most historic and touristy areas of the country?

Mayank Austen Soofi

Clash of ignorance not clash of civilisations: Aga Khan

Prince Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of Ismaili community, Friday rejected the notion that tension and violence in today's world was a result of clash of civilisations, especially between the Islamic world and the West.

'I disagree with this assessment. In my view it is a clash of ignorance which is to blame,' he told a gathering at the foundation laying ceremony of the Aga Khan Academy for Excellence in Education on the city outskirts.

The clash between the Islamic world and the west had its origins in "ignorance" that could be contained through a broad study of world cultures including Islamic civilisations, the Aga Khan, the spiritual head of Ismaili Muslims, said today.

"It is a clash of ignorances...There is a need to study and understand Muslim civilisations, a subject which is often overlooked in some parts of the world today," he told a gathering here after laying the foundation stone for the Aga Khan Academy in neighbouring Ranga Reddy district.

Ignorance and rejectionism lie at the heart of the conflict between the Western and the Islamic worlds, the Aga Khan, spiritual head of the world's more than 15 million Shia Ismaili Muslims, said.

Prince Karim Aga Khan urged a renewed effort to promote pluralism and tolerance through education, while also addressing festering political disputes and desperate poverty which have contributed to rising extremism.

Talking to a small group of journalists in New Delhi, he said the world was grappling with "a conflict of ignorance".

The Aga Khan, billionaire spiritual leader of the world's 15 million Shia Ismaili Muslims, has laid the foundation stone for a 50-million-dollar educational centre in southern India.

"The key to future progress in the developing world will be its ability to identify, to develop, and to retain expert and effective home-grown leadership," said the Aga Khan at the ceremony in Hyderabad.

"Too many of those who ought to be leading their communities in the hopeful world of tomorrow are being left behind in the real world of today."

Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of 20 million Ismaili Muslims around the world, on Friday said he didn't think that current global tensions have been caused by a clash of civilization between the Islamic world and Christians.

"In my view it's a clash of ignorance which is to blame," the Aga Khan said after laying the foundation stone of a US$50 million (€41.6 million) Aga Khan Academy for Excellence in Education in Hyderabad, the capital of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

Islamic spiritual leader Aga Khan, who runs a large number of philanthropic institutions in India, on Wednesday met President A P J Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discussed developmental issues.

Khan, who is here on a four-day visit, also called on Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.

The spiritual leader is slated to meet Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha L K Advani and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi today.

Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of the world's 15 million Shia Ismaili Muslims, on Wednesday called on President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discussed issues of mutual interest.

Aga Khan, the 49th Imam of Ismaili Muslims, also held a joint meeting with Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy, his Minister of State Ajay Makan and Tourism Minister Ambika Soni.

The meeting with the Prime Minister held at Dr. Singh's 7 Race Course residence lasted over half-an-hour, officials said.

The 49th hereditary Imam of Shia Ismaili Muslims, Aga Khan met President APJ Abdul Kalam in the capital on Wednesday at the sprawling Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Earlier, he met Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

The spiritual leader, who is on a three day visit to India, has a host of programmes lined up in Delhi and Hyderabad.

Khan will meet the Vice- President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Union ministers S Jaipal Reddy, Amibika Soni and Ajay Makan. He is also expected to meet President A P J Abdul Kalam.

Prince Karim Aga Khan, the spiritual head of the Ismaili community and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy Friday laid foundation stone for the Aga Khan Academy on the city outskirts.

The Aga Khan Development Network and Aga Khan Foundation are developing the Academy, an international school of excellence, at a cost of $50 million on 100 acres of land allotted by the state government at Kancha Imarat in Ranga Reddy district.